


we could live forever, if you've got the time

by wheo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post S8, Post-Canon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, can i emphasise the word fluff any more, kind of, older klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheo/pseuds/wheo
Summary: “Oh, of course you did. Of course you’d want to kill me the second you see me alive after two years. What else did I expect? A welcome kiss?I missed you,maybe? So foolish of me.”“Incredibly foolish of you,” Lance says, and kisses him.





	we could live forever, if you've got the time

**Author's Note:**

> i started this at 3 am and it took me two coffees to finish it. enjoy

Time, in the vast expanse of space— Keith knows—is either your friend or your enemy. It either passes achingly slow, with days that feel like they stretch on for weeks or it's a blink of an eye— you say two words and it's already tomorrow. Time, Keith also knows, is different out here than it is on Earth. He doesn't know if he's thankful, or if he resents it.

Here's the thing: when he kisses Lance after the final battle, blood pumping with adrenaline, heart beating behind bruised ribs, the _you almost died and I didn't tell you how I feel_ hanging in the air, he doesn't expect it to go well, to say the least. Yeah, it's a kiss and yeah, it's oddly romantic, in a weird way, kissing in beat up armor in front of their equally beat up lions like a scene fresh out of a “sci-fi themed but also contains a very obvious romantic subplot" movie. And yeah, Lance does kiss back, equally as hard and equally as wanting. That is, in that moment. Keith expects a _let's forget this ever happened_ talk in about two to five business days.

But here's another thing: Lance then pulls back from him, pupils blown and lips swollen, and he looks at Keith, looks him dead in the eyes and says, “you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that.”

Let's tell it as it is: Keith isn't the smartest guy ever. With Pidge’s infinite knowledge of technology and Hunk’s smarts and Shiro’s wisdom about seemingly everything— he does have quite some concurrence. Lance, despite being dubbed the dumb one by an “all-knowing” alien (do mind the quotation marks: for someone who's all-knowing, Bob sure missed the part of his all-knowingness where it says that Lance, the blue and then red paladin of Voltron, is in fact, not the dumb one— but then again, everyone has some weak spots in their knowledge, don’t they?), happens to be smarter than he's given credit for. Keith is aware of that, and has been aware of that. But with hundreds of people watching, and maybe more, it's a little hard to say it. It's definitely a little hard to say it. _I picked Lance because he's smart and courageous and selfless and one of the greatest people I've ever met and I think I love him, a little bit? I might love him a little bit. Does that affect my pick?_ Yeah. Yeah, no.

So, Keith isn't the smartest— and Keith, not being the smartest, apparently completely misses the various hints Lance throws at him during their, what, six years in space? Give or take. Six years in space of Lance dropping hints, and six years of all of them flying over Keith's head. Yeah, Keith really isn't the smartest.

But Keith thinks about it—thinks about it a lot, in fact. More than it was deemed necessary or even useful, but he heard thought was food for the brain, so he takes it very seriously. He thinks about it instead of sleeping— goes over every instance he can remember, every moment, and looks at it from a different perspective. Lance, holding his hand, smiling at him, telling him they are a good team. Lance, deliberately asking him if he's with the princess or _with with_ the princess. Lance, and his teasing, and his jokes, and all of him. Lance.

He can maybe, a little bit, see the part where he was stupid— or, all of the parts, that is.

So, like every sci-fi movie protagonist does after being confessed to, Keith chokes on air. Quite literally. It's a solid minute of coughing and Lance worryingly tapping a hand on his back until Keith goes back to normal and rasps out a very dumbstruck, “what?”

That's the part where Lance starts laughing, Keith thinks. He remembers it very vividly. It starts in his eyes and then tugs at his lips and then takes over all of his features. Basked in the orange light of a sunset, it's one of the prettiest things Keith has ever seen. Lance alone is one of the prettiest things Keith has ever seen, but it's not like he'll say it. At least for now.

Keith has to hold himself back from kissing Lance again. It's weird. It's already weird enough. He doesn't need to make it weirder.

Lance stops laughing, then. It feels like watching a flicker of a flame die out. He's very serious, suddenly, and Keith mutters an out-of-place “um,” as Lance says, “you're not going to regret that are you?”

Keith then looks at him, long and hard, and hopes Lance can't see him turning the words over in his mind. He takes in a breath, exhales, and says, “I’ll only regret it if you do.”

“Okay,” Lance says, and it's a tense second between this and the following sentence. And the following sentence happens to be: “Can I kiss you again?”

It's not right, Keith knows. Lance's sentence isn't right. Keith kissed him first so— Lance would be kissing him for the first time, now, not again. Keith doesn't mention it— he kisses Lance again instead.

The idyll lasts two entire years. Team Voltron gets a timeout, spends some time on the bench. No one really minds it much. Lance takes Keith to Cuba and Keith takes Lance to the shack, but there's not much to see there. Lance cracks a few jokes about Keith being a conspiracy theorist and Keith finds out he probably wouldn't mind being in the middle of nowhere with Lance. Lost in space, in the middle of the desert, the ocean, you name it. Wherever the universe takes them, Keith thinks he wouldn't mind it as long as Lance is by his side. Keith thinks that might be love.

Keith thinks that definitely _is_ love, so he says it, in the shack, over the sound of dust settling and creaking wood, in the living room his mother and father confessed. It's not ideal, for Lance, because he doesn't know—for him, it's just a dusty shack. For Keith, it's something he called home.

So, Keith says it, while Lance is picking at some books on some shelf Keith completely forgot about, left behind to do nothing but collect dust. Lance picks at books like it's the most interesting thing in the world, and Keith is in love with him.

“Would it be weird to say,” Keith says, a little stupidly, “would it be weird to say that I'm in love with you in the same space where my father said the same thing to my mother, or what?”

Lance almost drops a book on his feet.

“Keith,” Lance says, oddly deadpan, “would it be _weird-_ why are you asking me if it would be weird if you just said it anyway!”

“I didn't know how to bring it up,” Keith counters. And then, for good measure: “Just… I’m in love with you.”

Lance crosses the space between them in three very, very fast paces. He mutters something that sounds a lot like _Jesus fucking Christ_ while he does it. Then he's in front of Keith, so close Keith can count the freckles on his cheeks, and it isn't weird, anymore. Being close like that. It's just nice.

“You,” Lance says, ”are going to kill me one day. Do you know that? You're going to kill me.”

Keith wants to say something along the lines of _no_ or _I won't,_ but the words get caught in his throat when Lance kisses him. Lance kisses him, and when he pulls back he says, “I’m in love with you, too,” and Keith almost chokes on air again.

So, time in space. It either helps you or it doesn't. After the year of living in a fairytale, they get pulled back into reality. Allura leaves first. Keith leaves for a mission short after.

“Don’t die,” Lance says to him, standing in the docking bay of Keith's ship, face pressed into Keith's shoulder. Keith's heart aches.

“I won't. If I do, you'll kill me,” Keith says and Lance laughs against him, a little wetly. He doesn't pull back. Lance isn't the one to want to be seen crying.

“Yeah. Yes, good. You're a fast learner,” he says and this time, he pulls away. His eyes are bleary and he sniffles, and Keith wipes at the tear tracks. He kisses the top of Lance's head, a little childish, and then the corner of his mouth.

“I love you, okay? I’ll come back.”

“You always do,” Lance smiles, though it carries a sadness. Keith isn’t surprised. “I love you, too.”

Seeing Earth from afar used to be something to look forward to. Seeing Earth from afar used to mean coming home. This time, it means leaving home behind, even after wiping at its tears in the docking bay.

Altean technology is a blessing, though. Equipping Earth with it meant Keith gets to video chat back home whenever he pleases, no matter how far away he is. He avoids it, at first, purely just to adjust to Lance not being around. It takes some time. You get used to one person being around all the time and when they're not, it feels like a piece of you is missing. Keith has become very familiar with that feeling.

Four Earth months is apparently how long it takes him to adjust. To Keith, it feels like a few weeks. _Time is either your friend or your enemy._

“I hope Shiro and Adam haven't gotten married while I was gone,” Keith tells Lance when he sees him for the first time. Lance is in his pajamas, bed hair and all, eye bags neatly sitting under his eyes. He looks tired. Keith doesn't mention it.

“They haven't, but they might if you don't come back soon,” Lance says, now sounding tired as well, and Keith bites the inside of his cheek. _No one knows how long this will last._

Two years is how long it lasts. Two missed anniversaries, two of Lance's birthdays missed. Two years of seeing Lance only through a screen. All things considered, it's a little worrying to not see Lance waiting for him at the docking bay. Nevermind it, Keith’s feet finally touch the Earth after two long years, that somehow, thankfully, felt shorter in space. He hugs Shiro first, Adam second. Hunk picks him up and spins him, and Pidge is as short as she always was. And then there's Lance— or, there isn't Lance.

“He’s probably in one of the classes,” Shiro says, because Shiro with his wisdom has learned how to read into Keith's mind a long time ago, when Keith was thirteen and clueless and didn’t know how to hide his feelings well. He hadn’t taught himself to do it yet. “I can take you to him.”

“It’s okay,” Keith says, just in time as someone else says, “You won’t have to.” Keith can recognize that voice from miles away. Keith can recognize that voice, even though the last time he’s heard it, it was woven with static interrupting every other word. Keith recognizes that voice, and turns towards it, chases it.

“Good to finally see you without the shitty video chat quality, babe.”

Here’s the thing: Keith has been away for two years. Two years of, like Lance said, only seeing his boyfriend through a shitty video chat with shitty video chat quality. So, two years later, seeing Lance in front of him? Yeah. It does something to his heart.

Here’s another thing: Lance became a part of the Garrison— which means, Garrison uniforms, right? The kinds Shiro used to wear when Keith was thirteen and didn’t really care. But Lance wearing them? Again, yeah. Keith is a weak-hearted man.

They just stand there, watching each other. The noise of the staff unloading the ship is drowned out completely. Shiro, Adam, Hunk and Pidge stand in a straight line, exchanging glances, waiting for something to happen. Because— if this is the sci-fi movie, and they’re the main romantic pairing then, you know, they probably expect them to do something, romantic, per se. But for a few silent moments, it’s just taking each other in.

Lance moves first, and fast. Walks over in five quick paces and pulls Keith’s wrist into a vice-grip. He turns to the bystanders.

“Do you mind if I borrow him for a sec,” he says, again, very quickly— and before anyone gets to answer, he’s talking again, “Of course you don’t. I’m his boyfriend.” And he’s tugging Keith towards the entrance. Pidge does a very poor job at disguising her snicker as a cough.

“Hi,” is what Keith says once they’re outside. The hallway is empty, and Lance- despite being shorter (by half an inch, maybe), corners Keith into a wall.

“Hi,” Lance says. “You were gone for two years.”

“That’s—yes, that is correct.”

Lance’s eyes are calculating. Keith feels very out-in-the-open. “I booked us a flight to Cuba. We need some us time. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

Keith lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Out of all the things Lance had to pull him away and intensely stare him down for, he’s glad it’s this. He’s glad it’s not something worse. “Okay,” he says. “Nice uniform, by the way.”

Lance grins, then, finally. It makes the skin around his eyes wrinkle. Keith makes himself a mental note to count the freckles on Lance’s cheeks and see if it’s the same count as it was before he left. “Really? I’m glad,” Lance says. “Didn’t even have to wear it today. Put it on just for this special occasion.”

“Oh, of course you did. Of course you’d want to kill me the second you see me alive after two years. What else did I expect? A welcome kiss? _I missed you,_ maybe? So foolish of me.”

“Incredibly foolish of you,” Lance says, and kisses him.

 

*

 

“Allura, how did you propose to Romelle?” 

On the screen, Allura adjusts her earpiece. Even under the pressure of being a new queen, and being in the constant eye of the public, she carries herself with even more grace than she did before. “What? Keith, are you trying to tell me something?”

See, Allura is smart too. Allura is incredibly smart, and Keith didn’t think this through.

“Uh, no?” he tries. “Yes? Maybe?”

“Okay,” says Allura, calculatingly calm. “You’re planning on proposing? So soon?”

“Allura, you and Romelle got married after a year,” Keith returns. “It’s been four years, or, well, two, if you don’t count the ones I was away.” He frowns at himself. “Whatever. I just know this is it, you know? After being away for two years, I just know I can’t go without him for any more than I already was. It’s like— if I had all the time in the world, I’d give it to him. I’d spend all of my time with him. I want— I want to spend all of my time with him.”

Allura’s smile is warm. It’s the only way to describe it. It reminds Keith of Lance, in a way. It’s contagious.

“Okay,” she says. “So, Cuba?”

Keith smiles. His heart beats in his throat. “You know it.”

 

*

 

Varadero beach is as beautiful at night as it is during the day. First time being there, it was breathtaking. Now it’s just familiar. 

So, Keith and Lance lay on the sand of Varadero beach, arms and legs stretched out, watching the stars, connecting constellations. Naming the stars that have already died out.

“That one would be called Lance,” Keith says, pointing to a blue star in the sky, “because it’s blue and it’s bright. And beautiful.”

“And I thought I was the loverboy,” Lance mutters, and then laughs, and it melts with the sound of waves hitting the shore. “What did that mission do to you? Did you take up romance lessons in your spare time? I bet Kolivan is a good teacher.”

“Shut up and name your star, Lance.”

“Okay, okay.” He turns his head up, gaze gliding over the sky while Keith’s eyes are locked onto him. “Found a red one! I’ll name it Mullet 3000.” He says, and laughs, and stops when he notices that Keith isn’t laughing with him. “Keith? Come on, that was funny.”

“Get up,” says Keith, already pulling himself to his feet.

Lance shoots him a worried look. “Why?”

“Well, I can’t do this while you’re lying down, so. Get up.”

And Lance does. And Keith thinks, for a split moment, watching Lance’s eyes wide in the dark, if maybe this is a mistake. If maybe he’s being his impulsive self and everything will go to shit, if he does this. But then he looks at Lance some more and thinks, _I could spend my time counting your freckles in silence and wouldn’t mind. I could spend my time doing nothing in silence, as long as you’re there, and I wouldn’t mind._ So, without further thought, he fishes the box out of his pocket, and kneels down.

Lance’s gasp melts into the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, again.

“You know how you said,” Keith starts, no preparation, no practice, just his own mind. Allura’s own words, _just tell him how you feel, with words that come off the top of your head. That way it’s true. That way it’s honest. You don’t have to wax poetic to tell him you love him— it’s only three words. And those three words, he already knows._ “You know how you said you always wanted to be proposed to on Varadero beach. And I think— I think since I wasted our first “I love you” on a dusty old shack that only has meaning to me, I think you deserve something too. I think you deserve a lot. I— You deserve the world, and more. Galaxies. Planets. Stars named after you.”

Lance blinks abruptly in the dark. His hand has come to cover his mouth, the “o” of it visible through his fingers.

“I just think— I just know you’re the best person in the world, and the best one for me. And I just know that this is what I want. You are what I want.” He lets out a shaky breath. The night air of the end of September is chilly. Lance still hasn’t moved. “And I just know I want to spend all of my time with you. And maybe this is too sudden for you, and I get it. I get it if it is. I was gone for two years. But over the span of those two years, I’ve thought about it— I’ve thought about it a lot, actually. I want to spend the rest of my time with you—and if— if you don’t want that, or if you need more time, I’ll give it to you. I just— whatever your answer is, I just wanted you to know. I want to keep loving you until time runs out.”

“Keith,” says Lance, and it wavers. Keith didn’t notice he was crying.

“You’re beautiful. Incredible. Sometimes I wonder what I did for the universe to deserve you. I think even defending it doesn’t cut it.”

Lance snorts behind his hand. Keith smiles, despite the fact his hands are shaking.

“So, Lance McClain,” he says. “Will you, sometime in the future, do me the honour of marrying me?”

Lance laughs, and it’s like they’re in front of their lions again. Keith kissing Lance, Lance kissing back. Keith choking on air and tripping over his own words, and Lance laughing. It burns with familiarity. “We’re not allowed to do it before Shiro and Adam or you’ll be grounded forever. But otherwise, yes.”

“Shiro and Adam have no power over me,” Keith says. “You do.”

Lance wipes at his eyes with the heels of his palms, then laughs some more. “Alright, sure, loverboy. So are you going to put a ring on it, or not?”

Here’s the extraordinary, wonderful thing: when Keith kissed Lance after the final battle, blood pumping with adrenaline, heart beating behind bruised ribs, the _you almost died and I didn't tell you how I feel_ hanging in the air, he didn't expect it to go well, to say the least. When Keith got down on one knee on Varadero beach in Cuba, accompanied by the sound of waves and the smell of salt in the air, he doesn’t expect it to go ideal, either. Thankfully, he’s wrong. Both times.

But here’s another thing: the first time, Lance pulls back from Keith, pupils blown and lips swollen, and looks at him, looks him dead in the eyes and says, “you have no idea how long I've wanted to do that.” The second time, he says “yes” and watches Keith’s hands shake as he puts the ring on his finger, and once he does, Lance looks at him, looks at him with so much love behind his eyes, and kisses him.

Let’s tell it as it is: Keith has spent a lot of his life waiting. Waiting for his mother, then his father, then Shiro, to come back. Waiting to tell people how he really feels. Waiting. Wasting time. And time, Keith knows, is either your friend or your enemy. And however short or long it is, however fast or slow it passes— Keith plans on spending all of it with Lance. For the rest of however long forever is.


End file.
